Human Ignorance Uncivilized Behavior Due

Human Ignorance

Uncivilized Behavior due to Human Ignorance in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by C.P. Gilman and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by G.G. Marquez

More than just mirroring the realities of life, literature also functions as a mirror through which imaginary musings are reflected, wherein humanity's exploration of the unknown and unexplainable are highlighted. These reflections of the unexplored facets of human life provide knowledge to us readers as we bear witness to the different experiences of individuals, whose projections of their imagination provide an insight into the kind of society the writer, and maybe including us, lives in.

In analyzing the short stories "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, we readers are confronted with two unexplored possibilities in life, as interpreted by the authors and personified by their stories' protagonists. In "Yellow," Gilman explores the mind of a female individual whose society's initial impression is that she is experiencing a nervous breakdown, when in fact, she is gradually experiencing both empowerment as a woman and insanity, as her form of escape in the repressive nature of the dominantly male-society that she lives in.

Very Old Man," meanwhile, takes into account society's response to a religious symbol and persona, the angel, when it comes down to earth accidentally. In this story, the theme of uncivilized behavior due to human ignorance again surfaces, wherein the society in which Elisenda and Pelayo lived in demonstrated unexpected cruelty to an old man-angel simply because of the fact that the old man-angel did not fit the "benevolent" and "gallant" image of an angel.

Given the presence of the theme of human ignorance in both texts, this paper provides a discussion and analysis of this theme, positing that human society, when faced with situations in life they have not yet explored or do not know, tends to commit uncivil behavior and actions as its way of coping with the unexplored, even strange, situation. In the process, due to the conduct of uncivilized behavior, society remains ignorant and unaccepting of the reality that has just happened to it.

In arguing this thesis in the context of the short story "Yellow," Gilman provides the voice of the female protagonist first-hand, to allow the readers to determine whether indeed, the protagonist's husband was right in diagnosing his wife's condition as a nervous breakdown (or possibly, an escalation of insanity). In portraying the protagonist, Gilman provides two facets of her personality: one wherein she is in touch with her reality, and another wherein she becomes preoccupied and fixated with the room's wallpaper. The first portrayal demonstrates the woman as an individual struggling to "free" herself from society's repression, which are represented by the men in her life: her husband and her brother, whom are both doctors. The second portrayal, meanwhile, illustrates her eventual succumbing to insanity, which is considered as her form of escape from the "imprisonment" that she felt, having been defined as a nervous wreck by the men in her life, and as a woman with no freedom or choice in her society.

As a woman struggling to free and define herself from society's oppressive nature against women, the female protagonist raises many issues which symbolically represents her oppression. Among these issues is the fact that she cannot work because of her condition: "...am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again...Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good." These lines of thought from the protagonist reflect the woman's disagreement on he husband's belief that she needs rest. As a housewife confined mostly at home, the woman yearned to develop herself, to function as an able individual not just in her home but in her society as well. Thus, work became a symbolic manifestation of the woman's yearning for freedom: freedom from the oppressive label of being a housewife, and freedom from being limited and dictated what she needs to do and not do.

Human ignorance is highlighted in the story when, as the woman succumbed to the fixating task of "analyzing" and following the patterns of the yellow wallpaper, her husband thought her nervous breakdown has finally escalated into insanity. As the woman begins to consider the pattern a reflection of her own life, her family, particularly her husband John, began considering her condition as one of insanity: "At night...and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!...I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman."

In these unfortunate events in the woman's life, because her struggle to assert herself was misconstrued as a simple nervous breakdown and her eventual "empowerment" as a woman (i.e., recognition of her oppression and development of her self-worth) was interpreted as her fall towards insanity, the woman still remained a victim of her society's rigid norms and customs. The men in her life meanwhile, remained ignorant on the fact that his wife fought, internally, for self-definition and freedom, and uncivilly subjected his wife by "imprisoning" her, both psychologically (through drugs and endless bed rests) and physically (confining her in her room most of the day).

The second short story illustrates the same level of human ignorance personified by Gilman's protagonist's husband. However, in "Very Old Man," Marquez centers on the issue of not recognizing simple miracles and fortunate events in one's life, since human society sought for a more sensational and explicit forms of miracle and fortune. As a result of their ignorance to these simple miracles and fortunes in life, they failed to regard with respect, or even consider, the old man-angel as, indeed, an angel who fell on earth during a great storm.